Live at Kottke-Dooce 2006
Kottke and Dooce (Heather Armstrong) are talking at SXSW….wi-fi permitting, we’re going to do a little liveblogging…
Dooce: Why Sponsorship? Why No Advertising?
Kottke: I don’t like advertising very much. Why didn’t you do sponsorship?
Dooce: I don’t want people to feel like they “own” my time. If I wanted to go on vacation, I didn’t want people to commenting negatively. How did things change after you went to sponsorship?
Kottke: Had to take things more seriously — it required a more serious commitment.
Ok, can’t quite keep up….here are some random standout quotes/exchanges.
MORE QUOTES/EXCHANGES…
Dooce: Did you consciously decide to write less about yourself?
Kottke: I think he was out of the website (referring to himself in the 3rd person)
Dooce: You’re talking like Elmo.
Kottke: How do you separate Heather the person and Dooce the business/public persona?
Dooce: It’s been a long journey up to this point; in the past I’ve crossed boundaries that have devastated my life (both family and work, obviously)….I keep it separate in my mind, absolutely.
SIDENOTE: I know–this is a session with Queen Mommyblogger Dooce–but we could really do without the crying babies.
Kottke: I really like going into an office and having people to talk to. Otherwise I think I’d go crazy….other than that, I’m married to my newsreader and my browser.
Kottke: I might explore putting ads on the site — seems like the obvious thing to do.
Kottke: The failure of the subscription model — it just wasn’t right for me. Advertising, while you are introducing a 3rd party into the mix of things, you don’t have those 1,500 people you think of as your boss.
Dooce: I’ve heard people say that about you — “he’s good for links, at least”.
Kottke: Oh, this is where it starts….I don’t have any mean questions for you.
Kottke: Longer posts are good for bringing people in; remaindered links are good for keeping them around.
Dooce: No, I think it’s the shower picture.
Kottke: Do you find it matters how much you update?
Dooce: No, not really. I don’t do links as well as you do; I don’t do politics as well as other people do. I need to tell a story with my site. I need to live the content.
Kottke: Live the content, that’s good.
Dooce: Did you relationship with your friends change?
Kottke: Not really.
Kottke: (on “meanness”) I don’t think you’re being a very good friend if you’re always supportive; I think you need to be critical sometimes.
Dooce: Publicly?
Kottke: Sometimes.
Dooce: (About the response to adding ads to the site) They even posted nasty things about my dog. Don’t say bad things about my dog.
Battery rapidly dying on the laptop….will try to keep going, or sum it up later.
Kottke: I don’t want a community to develop around Kottke.org.
Dooce: Why?
Kottke: Dave Winer is very much the example — the pied piper spreading a message and getting people to follow him. I don’t want that. I am interested in people having focused discussions on specific topics. I want those conversations to be high-level….but it takes a lot of time.
Kottke: (On Papa Dooce’s job as stay-at-home dad) Is there a movie in the works, like Mr. Mom 2?
Dooce: No, definitely no movie.
Dooce: I think a lot of the people naysaying are jealous of what we’re doing.
Dooce: If you put advertisements on the site, how would it be different?
Kottke: Well, there’d be ads on it.
Kottke described the site needing a “shock”, without saying exactly what sort of changes he had in mind.
Dooce: Blame Meg.
Kottke: Yeah, she’s like Yoko.
And finally, the best quote from the entire Kottke/Dooce-a-thon:
Dooce: Kottke.org is the first blog I read. Getting to meet him is like meeting Brad Pitt’s cousin.
UPDATE: Rex Hammock types way faster than I do — so if you want a more complete account of Dooce-Kottke, check out his transcript of the entire keynote.
This entry was posted by Kyle Bunch on Sunday, March 12th, 2006 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Heather Armstrong, Jason Kottke, SXSW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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on March 12, 2006 at 5:59 pm Bill Humphries wrote:
First, thank you for taking notes, a bunch of folks wanted to hear what was going on.
SIDENOTE: I know–this is a session with Queen Mommyblogger Dooce–but we could really do without the crying babies.
I call shenanigans.
I’ve read reports from Zeldman and Meyer that they are effectively locked out of evening events because most are held at bars and Texas forbids minors, even with parents from entering.
The people with babies in the audience are there to connect, just as much as a the young turks with an XHR stack and a pile of angel funding.
on March 13, 2006 at 9:38 am malatron wrote:
“Dooce: Kottke.org is the first blog I read. Getting to meet him is like meeting Brad Pitt’s cousin.”
Wow. That is in instant classic, one I am not ashamed to say I will be using myself.
on March 13, 2006 at 12:04 pm Kyle Bunch wrote:
So Bill–how about the rest of us, who paid our $$$ to come and HEAR the events. We should just be accomodating, b/c the people with crying babies want to “connect”?
I understand–babies cry. It’s just, civilized folk leave the room when their baby won’t stop crying, so that everyone else around them can actually still hear what’s going on.
Kids are totally fine in my book — assuming they don’t become such a distraction that people can’t hear what they paid to hear.
on March 13, 2006 at 1:59 pm Nick Douglas wrote:
Or got a free press pass to hear.
on March 14, 2006 at 9:47 am Guardian Unlimited: Organ Grinder wrote:
SXSW
Part music festival part great geek gathering SXSW or South by South West came up with some valuable insights into all things online during its four day interactive session, including the news via Rexblog and others that blogging pioneer Dave…
on March 14, 2006 at 1:30 pm paul wrote:
You can hear a podcast of this session at: http://2006.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/